Conventionally, media content (such as on-line movies) may be delivered from a media source such as a server computing system, to a media consumer such as a client presentation system or device. There are a wide variety of presentation systems include personal computers, Personal Digital Assistants (PDAs), High-Definition televisions, conventional definition televisions, wide screen displays, and the like. The size of the display and the processing capabilities of the presentation device vary widely. The bandwidth capability of the client presentation device may also vary greatly.
When media contents are encoded and generated, they are typically suitable for one set of client presentation systems, but not others. For example, online movies may play well on Personal Computers (PCs) but not on mobile devices due to the limited bandwidth that mobile devices sometimes have. Furthermore, Personal Computers are typically capable of displaying movies at higher resolution than mobile devices due to the size of the display.